Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Still, it was the bomb.
And I knew it was in that room.
It was crazy-generous, but sweet, and totally would bring the room together, which was why I was grinning at him when I opened the door.
It was early, still dark outside, so he reached in and flipped the light switch.
Nanook ran in, howling with excitement, then came to me, still howling.
I stood statue still in the doorway.
Core didn’t buy me the rug.
“You said you wanted a home office.”
I did.
And there it was.
Set to the side so I wouldn’t have the window at my back, there was an attractive large black table desk facing two comfortable chairs, all of this on top of a kickass zebra-print rug. The desk chair was black leather and chrome, and the desk lamp was also chrome.
Behind the desk was a long, black credenza that ran the length of the room and was topped with some decorative vases.
And on the wall above the credenza were six large black-and-white pictures framed in black with a wide white matte. They were set three and three in two rows.
Top left: Me and Liane as little girls, hugging in front of Li’s birthday cake with five lit candles on it.
Top middle: Mom, Andy, Archie, Elijah, Li and me, a formal portrait taken on Mom and Andy’s wedding day.
Top right: Mom, Li and me not too long ago, hanging in Mom’s she shed.
Bottom left: Marcy, Kyra and I drinking shots at a party during college.
Bottom right: Me working at my desk at the office (Xanthia must have taken it).
And bottom center: Core and me walking Nanook in the park (he must have arranged for Kyra or Marcy to stalk us, because it was a candid, and I had no idea it existed until that moment).
It wasn’t overly decorated, so I could put my stamp on it.
What it was, was beautiful.
“There’s a printer hidden in the cabinet,” Core was saying.
Dazed, I looked up at him.
He was gazing down at me. “Kyra helped me.”
I said nothing.
He started to look uneasy.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“I love it,” I said softly.
He smiled.
“I don’t…I don’t…” I stammered. “Sometimes I don’t know what to do with how much I love you.”
He stopped smiling.
Nanook woofed.
And then I was on a biker’s shoulder, this right before I was on my back in our bed and that biker was on me.
I was all for round two, but I grabbed his face and called, “Core.”
“Later,” he growled.
And it was going to be later because he kissed me.
It was later and I was tangled naked with my man.
I studied his face as I stroked his cheekbone, his jaw, sifted my fingers in his hair, and I confessed, “My feelings are so big right now, I don’t have words.”
“I just paid for it,” he shrugged it off verbally. “Kyra designed it.”
“I love her for that, but you know.” I flattened my hand to the side of his head and pressed gently. “You know what that means to me.”
“I know,” he murmured.
Excruciating care.
“I worry that I don’t give you as much as you give me,” I admitted.
His lips curved. “Baby, you’ll be rolling in the dough before either of us can blink.”
“I don’t mean that way,” I replied.
He took my hand from his head, curled his fingers around it and pressed both to his throat.
None of this prepared me for what would come next. Not even the expression he was wearing. My feelings were too big to fully process anything.
Even if I had processed it, I wouldn’t have been prepared.
“I had one foster dad who thought my ass was his for fucking because he put a roof over my head and food in my stomach, both of which he was being paid to do.”
My mouth filled with saliva.
“I got moved from that house after I not only fucked him up when he tried that shit with me, I fucked him up more when he tried that shit with another kid that was there with me. They investigated, I didn’t get into trouble, but I got rehomed with a lady who took the state’s money but fed us nothing but generic Cheerios and chicken noodle soup. Like, breakfast and dinner every day for weeks. Lunch too on weekends. We didn’t eat at school because she didn’t give us the money to do it. The two months I lived with her, I lost twenty pounds.”
My chest caved in.
“Core—”
“Do you think once, even fucking once in the life I lived that I thought I’d ever wake on Christmas to fuck my woman’s sweet pussy and give her what she asked for, knowing I’m gonna go to her family’s house later. And knowing, once we get there, there’s gonna be nothing but love and laughter and good food and good memories?”
No. It gutted me, but I knew he didn’t think even once that he’d have any of that.